


The waiting rooms of my reality

by bleedingrainbows, e3echo



Series: Strange Winter [1]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Doctor Strange (Comics), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brokenness, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky's trigger words, Come with us, First Kiss, Healing, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, Magic, Roleplay adaptation, Stephen Strange feels, These two have so much potential
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 18:09:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9001159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleedingrainbows/pseuds/bleedingrainbows, https://archiveofourown.org/users/e3echo/pseuds/e3echo
Summary: Bucky had trained with Strange to get ahold of his mind again and it is time to break the triggers inside his head.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just tell us we need beta reading if you are willing to do it or knows who does it. We tried and don't know where to find one MOSTLY FOR THIS RANDOM SHIP and for such poetic license 
> 
> We wanted to post it so honestly live and let live.
> 
> And Merry Christmas for all.

The sun was low in the horizon when Bucky and Stephen finally found themselves only accompanied by the slight breeze in that part of the temple. Whooshing of leaves. Sight of mountains. Writing description of peace.

No one he could hurt. No actual threat. There wasn't anyone else in that yard and all Bucky could hear was the scream locked up within himself, his own heartbeats and his own puffing breath.

The biggest issue was, he could say he’s been controlled, but everything he'd done, it was with his own logic. He decided with his own reasoning how he would take every life that he took, whether in the cleanest, quickest or most painful of ways. His haunted nights and cursed days, the low whisper of children under their breath, the loud screeching of screams in the silence of his nightmares. The worst of darknesses were the ones stained in red, dripping scarlet, tasting and smelling like iron, instead of actual black.

Control. And the ability of laying it down gently when the moment is right.

He stepped forward, looking into Stephen's eyes to try to find a single certainty at least for the thousands of denials.

"Begin."

Calendars tricked him more than once when he was in the temple. Time wasn't a day or a second; all he actually knew was too much, enough, early or later. Right now, he was perishing within the meanings of never again.

Years ago, he made the decision. He would heal. He would make himself whole again. And after having his life saved, he would dare to ask Strange for one more thing. The greatest thing someone can give to anyone.

A chance.

To prove he could be a valuable soldier in his fight and the strongest of students. That even though their personalities weren’t aligned, being actually colliding, he knew well about obedience.

And stubbornness would be the word when it wasn’t resilience.

Stephen was his teacher, his opponent, his master, his company. For a time he wouldn't find even a word or a sentence to reach. Maybe, scratching the surface, through all his life. His new life. His new self.

Stephen was the one who knew that distances were barely worth a finger snap and that reality isn't but a slave. And from him Bucky had learned too much; as common sense tells, the lesson he learned the best was how little he knew and how puny and tremendous at the same time was his own strength or the shine of his own self before the clashes of universes.

Bucky's throat was dry. If he ever got to learn how to detach from the shackles of the material world, his own deprivations would lock him back in a cage. But as a tamed lion fearing the blazing iron, he remained still, cold sweat on his forehead, holding onto anything worth a sigh, like the thirst on his dry lips. And Stephen said the first word.

"желание."  
zhelaniye  
Longing.

Strange's eyes were locked on Barnes' figure, a large frame filled with the calculations of probabilities of all that could go right or, even if he found that actually improbable, wrong. He had to be careful, they had to be careful; he always wanted to make sure that every step was cautiously planned when it came to his training.

"ржавый."  
rzhavyy  
Rusted.

But this couldn't be planned fully. There was a lapse, something he truly couldn't administrate, protect James from; and that something had been a burden and a horrid possibility around the corner for the other man. Even though he had something stronger than faith – he was certain, he wasn't sure about Barnes.

"семнадцать. рассвет. печь."  
Semnadtsat’. Rassvet. Pech’.  
Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace.

Stephen felt his hands were impossibly cold and he couldn't actually remember what the dense, whole feeling that spread through his shoulders was called; so he didn't. Stephen watched how the thin nostrils of Barnes’ moved lightly at each breath, how his chest would rise, the slow flicker of his eyelids. As an apprentice, the man made great efforts and succeeded in so many things he was genuinely impressed. Still, sometimes he went overboard: never knowing when to stop or not realizing he had already accomplished something. He was focused, sharp, meditation bringing him to another level of control.

Yet he could see how unsure Barnes was, and he understood it completely.

"девять."  
Devyat.  
Nine.

Even if they managed to retrieve the ownership of Bucky’s brain to himself, one thing that could never be undone was the triggers to his memories. With each word, it was something else to fill his bones with liquid darkness; he remembered.

Children's blood, parents' tears. Screaming, begging, crying, the pulling of actual triggers and the lowering of the blades in skin, all comes back to him over and over until he himself is the one mouthing pleads. He shuts his eyes and it starts coming out of him like small flickers of light or wicked waving energy. Sly snakes slithering where his blood should be, ripping and raping his arteries to find their way to his skull.

Eyes flashed open again. Light's blinding, orange like the fainting of a bright day. Reminiscence of fear and rage, ablaze, and the iridescence of rainbow water poured upon it.

It's Strange. Vincent. If he's got to lose himself, better off if to his beautiful trembling hands. If someone's got to carry his soul on their sleeve, that would be him.  
If only his desperation rested in the issue of trust, if only. He trusted Stephen blindly. If it weren't the acknowledgement that all that the man who utters the keywords does is to manipulate the monster that is already inside of him. The actual feeling of power, the sensation, was there. He was the one who calculated the how. He knew everything to do to make a man to speak out; is he a father, a son? Who is to be bent? Where will it hurt the most?

He knew it all. It was all inside of him. He knew how to inflict pain and assure death more than anything he's ever known.

Suddenly the very image he was trying to hold on to to keep it together, Strange's, was exactly the one for which he feared the most in that exact moment. He could hurt _him_. Who knew what there was ready to be used in his wicked mind, with the new knowledge he’s acquired throughout his training and studying?

Those words made him feel nothing but the taste of blood from the dreadful future he'll make in his bare hands if needed.  
"Stop it!" A blink and his marble-like figure was splintered along with his roar. His feet projected him forward the couple of steps needed to end the distance between the two of them - he covered Stephen's mouth with his right hand, terrorized immediately by the chance that he could do exactly what he avoided to, having used strength and rage towards him. The following fraction of a second after having placed his hand over his mouth, then, the pressure soothed. "I can't risk it. Everything here... I- I can't." While flesh and bone fingers still in place started more brushing than pressing lips, metal ones grasped Stephen’s clothes, twisting fists in anxiousness, and the irises under the wide open eyelids ran from one side to the other in his face.

In what seemed to be years, but could have been seconds, the analyzing eyes stopped at Bucky's, giving place to a deep, comforting gaze. The sorcerer was aware of how the wind blew from behind him, how the fabric of his clothes hovered over his body and how earth's gravity kept him from floating into space ever since before he was a newborn. He was aware of every little thing, because the sudden move has enhanced all his senses; but he wasn't scared.

The skin that caressed his lips was now so subtle the touches were a cry by themselves.

Stephen's pulse was fast from the sudden motion, his hands were predictably less stable, but they managed to make those shifting, well-known moves in a blink. As he rose them, he took the hand that stood over his mouth and placed it between his long and scarred fingers, taking it closer again so he could place a kiss over its pale back; a well-known gesture of full admiration, respect, devotion or simply grown empathy that he hoped could soothe away he man's worries.

He then let one hand drift to the metal wrist that clenched his clothes, wrapping weakly around it; a calm, easy movement. He endured both grips, looking into grey eyes and, already stepping forward pushing the man as well, Stephen finally spoke.

"Come with me."

Reality flickered around them, air breaking into shards as everything reflected their image; and suddenly they were somewhere else and completely alone. The mirror dimension.  
He eased his grip again, letting his fingers there with barely no pressure.

"Here we are safe, and they are safe. We have all space you need, and I'll be here with you; and I vow we'll be fine. You can do this. You don't have to do this now, James; but if you decide to continue, I won't leave."

The many faces of a diamond encased them away; from everything and everyone. If memories brought Bucky to his darkest hour, possibilities would scare them away. The susceptibility to the rottenness in his blood was only his; he could hear and touch his nightmares because they've always controlled him.

What about now? What but the unbearable gentleness of eyes sculpted with indifference; and the ineffable grip of fingers to make a super soldier know other meanings to true strength?

His hands slipped heavily and his arms were along his own torso, with yearning piercing through the concrete eyes.

He nodded.

In that dimension, as well, powers such as his new own were exponential - surely such as Strange's, but it wouldn't ease the lump in his throat if he didn't utter it.

"If I do anything, promise me you'll do whatever it's needed to stop it." Voice low, everything in him reached for what was left of the same sort of soothing. He wouldn't be too surprised if his mind decided for Strange as a better owner, words or no words, mantra or no mantra. Oddly enough, as he kicks his walls to pieces, he let the phantom of a smirk appear on his lips for a heartbeat before vanishing. "Go on."

"добросердечный." As the word left his mouth Stephen realized he'd have embraced it as a part of Barnes if he didn't knew it was a piece of such a vile and dishonest controlling mechanism.

The things that will be used against you to bend your will are the ones that shine upon the sea of your memories. He gazed at him, reassuring.

"возвращение на родину. один."  
Lonely.

Loneliness hurt. The mirror dimension felt like a metaphor for life, and the only company was the bending ceiling and floor; the high columns that seemed to hold the place, but that could be broken easily. They were away from them, and even if they were close it wouldn't take much for it to disappear and be an endless room. He thought about Barnes and about his commitment, his struggle, and his mind was filled with good wishes as the last word came out.

"грузовой ваго."

Through the words he read along all that time in the temple, through exercises he did, sacrifices he made, chances he left behind and futures he wouldn't know, through his own power of ripping fabric of reality to dive into other dimensions, through all that he went through for in a second to gather all he's had.

He just wouldn't let it. He would hold the cliffs together with his bare hand if it meant to keep the land as one.

The treacherous sensation of a mild vertigo above his conscience; and his own will of turning it into an uneven cloud to dissipate in the air, or into a wave of grey and silver bound to stop the rippling.  
That tunnel hearing and the migraine instead of sight, nothing was there in fact but his own effervescent self. All that power, everything his that he's got, in the very surface of his skin.

Differing the subjective world of his memories from the millions of reflections of possibilities of himself, and disentangling his feet from the quicksand.

Still there.

He stepped forward and Stephen was absolutely silent.

His own call. Not an order, not a command.

It wasn't the proofs on the outside, though, the reasons why his freedom screamed at him. It was because somehow it really screamed as if there isn't a wall to muffle.

It was entirely his call what to do with his own monsters.  
What carried him away was the unforgivable catharsis of the wholeness he's become. Energy stored to be used against something this big drained upon him like a waterfall, drenched him to his bones.

And then another thing, no magic, as simple and mundane as it could be.

Joy.

The tingling on his skin itched and he allowed himself a chuckle, as if suddenly it was all ridiculous. And worth it. And his. I am mine. From a million of reasons, and as if to make it up for the times he didn't laugh, he did now. Not for a motive. Not in despise, from humor, out of ridiculousness. He just did it for the sweetness of some seconds.

Because the first thing he'd do with wholeness of control was to let it go enough, knowing it would come back.

His eyes were lost in the shattered images around before again letting his eyes rest in Stephen at half an arm's reach.

Rest wasn't the word; it barely fluttered upon him.

Maybe Strange indeed had claimed him; but it was surely there long before. Long before he was disturbed, by the perturbing curiosity, the curious devotion, the devoted enchantment and the enchanted perturbation.

And like the first stars in the skyline that make sure the night is going to happen, his hand reached once more for Stephen's face, metal fingers once more clung to his clothes. This time, nevertheless, the hand slid on his cheek and dug on his hair, stopping only by the curve of his nape. The artificial arm wrapped around his waist, and there it was. All of it in the same second, Bucky pressed his mouth onto Stephen's, catching his lower lip in between his as if relying on the providence of chance for such perfect fit in their imperfection to happen.

James was so euphoric it worried Strange the first two laughs, the tension that creeped over broad shoulders leaving place to loose, shocked posture. It had worked, all the effort; the unavoidable discipline and caring forged into one sweet, subtle thing. He was thankful and proud, relief a place where he'd been for some time now, waiting for Barnes to meet him.

Maybe that was the reason why after the gesture, Stephen had his eyes open for a second, watching the fluttering of eyelids so close to him, the hand brushing through his hair, its light pull, the steady pressure around him – the _lips_.  
He moved, millimeters into flesh, parting to receive him whole; deepening with eyes closed the touch and letting his mind bind around the warm, electrical waves that took control over his self.  
He had good, great kisses through his life. None had left him with the feeling that it was that the one string that linked everything together, none of them felt exactly like that; and although he knew the reason behind that on his guts, it never ceased to surprise him.

Stephen raised his hands and sprawled them over Barnes' back, pulling him impossibly closer as his chest expanded and he smiled into the kiss.

“You are free”, he said, moving his fingers over fabric and muscles. “You are free.”

And if somehow in that dimension they've managed to penetrate each other's particular universe, Bucky wouldn't know. Yet certainly he could feel the meaning of those words emanating from Stephen, and in an irresistible apparent contradiction they came from the strength of the arms tying him in, locking them together as if irreversibly.

What started out, then, as pure response to screaming feelings unleashed, turned into something else entirely - still more like sculpting into shape what was already there for who knows how long. The eagerness in Bucky translated itself into fierceness as he took Stephen's lips with shorter breaths; the wave comes crashing in and it meets the rocks. Unavoidably, it would just drain on its stone surface, as well as his hand drained down Stephen's chest until resting on his waist, meeting its own sea again, replacing by gentle swaying with each deep breath.  
For a hiccuping breath, Bucky parted his lips and kept them steady. The sensitive skin brushed on Stephen's and the warm breath hovered brief between their mouths.

"Vincent." It lacked him the tears to cry, but not the cracks inside of him through which they could flow right now. The tip of his nose skimmed temptingly on the side of Stephen's.

"You gave it to me." He hushed. You saved me.

Stephen's hands traced their way down his back and raised to cup the face before him – frail motion, absurdly kind. A low and warm chuckle, barely audible, crossed the sorcerer's throat.

“No... You gave yourself." Stephen's voice was a whisper and he felt the corner of his eyes warm. He shouldn't dare letting himself feel the way he felt, new errors configuring themselves in every new heartbeat, but who was he trying to fool? Worries became friendly chatter that somehow turned into this. His eyes were closed, neck tingling and head airy, any other thoughts a tiny speck of dust inside a large glass vessel. He breathed in heavily, longingly, an intimacy that felt perfectly normal, just as the tips of his fingers skimmed through Barnes' face, learning the lines and angles that composed him.

"I'm so proud of you."

A deep sigh filled Bucky's lungs as he tilted towards the touch, so alike the first time they touched, and also not at all. Times. It hardly mattered at all if it always comes to what are the elements in the chemistry right now. At most, it adorned the true greatness, but it shouldn't be taken into consideration because it would be like one caring most about the colors in a nebula instead of about the infinite amount of bodies being born and dying.

Of course Bucky already pictured himself in Stephen's arms, even if frequently in lesser innocent ways, a man's got instincts after all. It would hardly bother him.  
It was the other ways he thought of him what really disturbed him and invaded him; remains of the unknown awaken which with he couldn't deal. All he knew all his life was wreckage and broken pieces on the floor, in an endless cold warehouse; the only entire pieces were inside a mausoleum, of that young man with his own name, a sergeant that loved a scrawny soldier who would be later called a captain.

Right there, as he looked into Stephen's eyes, he could see a glimpse of an actual shape, even if the sun of a new day rising from behind it blinds and the predominant shadows makes it harder to identify.

Right now, it was the exact synthesis of everything. It came down to this realization, to frail fingertips and their soft graze on the skin of his face. He was still grasping Stephen's clothes. The shudders weren't in those hands, they were his own. Bucky shivered and trembled, the vibrations in his body. Lifting his hand to hold his, he carefully took it to his mouth and kissed on his fingers - finger by finger, near his knuckles, if for a symbol he internalized or entirely out of his heart. The feeling was truth nevertheless.

Each time, inside Stephen's body, an almost unbearable lightness sprouted from within his scapulas as shivers ran down his fingers, finding their way through his spine. It was a fuzzy, weird feeling that liquified his bones.  
He didn't really know what to do then. There was little he could make, little he could think of. He was so happy for Barnes the smile he gave could light up a city like New York, his eyes crooked at the corners and large lines filled his cheeks.

That way, he could almost believe happiness. Standing there, with that man who had survived so much, in a side dimension where time and safety seemed eternal, he didn't mind the chaos, the hundred-years troubles he had to solve before humanity decayed, the complications that filled his worst nightmares. He could feel it, and he decided he'd hold on to that for as long as possible.

They say when you sell your soul, the deal may look like everything you wished for. It may stay that way, the trade seeming fair, because you only _couldn't live without that_. They say trouble comes halfway, when suddenly it's too late or too soon, when suddenly the doorknob clicks and you finally fully realize you're locked inside forever; but you're not actually paying for it yet.

But what if the door locks you somewhere where pain is beautiful? Where nothing could really hurt, you being made from hurt itself; what if the purgatory that came before hell is a pleasurable experience you'll go through willingly? What if the absurd, obtuse, treacherous consequences of your acts felt like sleepy kisses before going to bed, like cozy hugs, like flirting stares?  
That way, when the deal comes due, wouldn't one feel like they're in heaven?

Strange accepted the wave that swallowed him whole and turned his insides out, intertwining their fingers and pulling their hands to the side so he could kiss him again.

_That way, wouldn't it all be worth it?_


End file.
